


Steam Powered Short Stories

by Snivvles4902



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Family Fluff, Siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-09-27 17:58:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17166629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snivvles4902/pseuds/Snivvles4902
Summary: A collection of my SPG fics that are only one or two parts. Tags will updated as I go, and any warnings will be put in the chapter(s) they apply to.





	1. Out in the Rain

The Jon knew he wasn’t supposed to be out when it was raining, but he always snuck out anyway. It was more than worth the rust to feel the little droplets dripping off his hat and onto his nose. It tickled.

He started counting each raindrop that touched him as he walked. The count was a little over four thousand by the time he reached his destination, which was a lonely old apple tree in the nearest park to the manor.

There were plenty of trees in the park but this one was special. It was oldest tree in the park and there was a ring of empty ground around the tree, as if the other plants had tried to clear space for the elderly apple tree. It was pretty far off the path, so very few people ever came by, making it a nice spot for a robot who didn’t want to get any weird looks or be found and dragged back to the manor by his siblings.

The Jon greeted the tree like an old friend, which it quite was, and settled down under the shelter of its leaves, careful not to sit on the trees roots. (You wouldn’t want a robot sitting on your toes, would you?) The foliage did well to block some of the rain, just enough so that he probably wouldn’t rust too bad as long as he didn’t take off his clothes or anything, which he did not intend to do. At least, not this time. As for water getting into his inner workings, he didn’t have to worry about that in the same way that his siblings did. The water was nice enough to not squeeze under his metal plating.

Looking up, he saw that the sky was no longer the light bluish gray of rainclouds, but instead the light green of apple tree leaves with little gray ribbons weaving through the gaps in the foliage. Unfortunately, the colors were not joined by the red of apples at this time of the year. Meanwhile, on the ground, there was a ladybug gripping onto a blade of grass, fighting to not be dislodged by the drops of rain.

"What a lovely song," thought The Jon as he listened to pitter-patter of the rain and soon started humming along with it. "If nature was in the music business, I bet it’d top the charts!"

It was a wonderful few hours, sitting there and singing with the raindrops. The koi in his chest was at ease, lazily swimming loop-de-loops. And the best part was nobody was there to question it. Well, except for the tree, but he got it. And the ladybug. She got it, too.

At some point, The Jon felt a tingling at the back of his head. After itching had failed to help he realized that it was much like the signal he got from the manor wi-fi. One of his siblings must have finally noticed that he was gone.Even if there was no connection, the robots still had a way of messaging each other, granted that they were close enough. The signal was from The Spine, it seemed, worriedly calling for The Jon. He thought he could also hear The Spine’s voice through the (at this point declining) rain, if he strained his ears. The message carried a feeling of desperation and weariness with it, as if The Spine had been at this for some time. He must have been on the part of the path closest to the spot. Close enough so that the signal would reach, but the old apple tree would still be hidden from view.

The Jon pat the roots of the tree, his way of bidding it farewell, then stood up and sent the message “Coming!” He made sure to step over the ladybug (Ladies do not like being stepped on) and then ran towards the main path. He hated leaving the peaceful spot, but he hated worrying his big brother even more.

Sure enough, there was The Spine standing by the stone path with a plain black umbrella, looking exhausted. He put on a grumpy face when Jon ran up to him, but the flicker of relief in his eyes was apparent.

“Why do y’gotta keep running off like this?” The Spine scolded. “And you don’t even have an umbrella! You’ll get rusted out, ya’ know.”

“I know…” The Jon said in a small voice as they started walking away from his safe place. “But we don’t get much rain here and if I didn’t go out today… How could I feel the rain?”

The Spine glanced at Jon and his face softened. “It just scares us when you run off like that, little buddy. When we couldn’t find ya’, Peter was furious and Rabbit totally freaked. I mean, what if something happened to you and we couldn’t find you? We just need to know that you’re okay.”

The Jon nodded, but his eyes were still staring up at the sky. The Spine followed his gaze and a smile slowly spread across his face. The ‘bots watched the brilliant colors of the double rainbow the entire way back home.


	2. Sock Puppets

The Spine had been rather grumpy as of late. One might even say that he had been 'down in the dumps.' That was why Rabbit and Zero planned a little surprise to cheer him up.

The Spine was suspicious when Rabbit told him that she had something to show him while hiding her hand behind her back, but played along anyway. It wasn't like he had anything better to do.

"You wait here for j-j-just a minute." Rabbit said before ducking into the doorway, leaving The Spine alone in the hall. He heard whispering, but couldn't make out what was said- not that he cared much.

After a few moments, Rabbit yelled, "You can come in now, Spine!"

The second he set foot in that room, he regretted it.

Most obviously, the room had been made into a makeshift theatre. In center-back of the room was what The Spine assumed was supposed to be a stage of some kind, but it looked more like a lemonade stand with curtains draped over it. There was a sign that was probably supposed to read "Puppet Theatre," and The Spine could instantly tell from the messy handwriting and backwards 'P's that it had been made by Zero. Rabbit's handwriting was also hard to decipher, but she wasn't dyslexic.

There was a lone cushion in front of the 'stage' that The Spine hesitantly sat on, but not before letting out an exasperated sigh. What with him being a several-ton machine, the cushion didn't hold his weight too well.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Zero's voice said in an announcer-like way, "we present to you Walter Manor's first sock puppet show!"

There was muffled clapping from behind the stage/lemonade stand hybrid, and a faint "woooh! Yay!" in Rabbit's voice. The Spine glanced around and wondered if it would be rude to get up and leave.

Then, like a demon-abomination rising from the depths of Hell, a sock puppet reared its head. And then, to its left, another one. 

"Hello!" The one on the left, which seemed to be Zero's, waved.

"Y'know, I h-... Wh-wh-what is that on y-your head?" The other puppet said in Rabbit's voice. For some reason, Zero's puppet had yellow paper folded into a cone and glued to its head. It was also covered in glitter.

"Why, I'm a unicorn!" The sparkly puppet said.

"That's, uh, great... Well, Mr. Unicorn, I just heard the most awful th-thing right now!" The other puppet said. It had less effort put into it, The Spine noted. Just two mismatched buttons sewn in for eyes.

"Really?" Mr. Unicorn gasped.

"Yeah! I heard that our good fr-fr-friend The Spine is s-sad!" Other Puppet replied. The Spine huffed an irritated cloud of steam. What were they talking about? He was perfectly fine...

"Oh no, that IS terrible!" Said Mr. Unicorn. He then gestured to The Spine. " Why don't we see if it's true by asking Th' Spine himself?" Other Puppet made a strange gasping sound like she had only just realized that he was sitting in front of them.

"Rabbit, Zero... I appreciate the effort, but I'm fine." The Spine said.

"Th' Spine, we don't know any Rabbit or Zero." Mr. Unicorn said. "Although that Zero sounds like a handsome guy."

"And I b-bet that Rabbit is a real cool cat, too." Other Puppet said. "But- but we don't care about them! Because YOU are our favorite robot, Spine!"

"Alright, alright, I get it." The Spine said. "Is this going to turn into a reprise of 'Go Spine Go?'"

"What? No. W-we aren't here to m-m-make fun. Even if you do have diarrhoea." There was a bout of spastic giggling after that.

The Spine just rolled his eyes, but deep down he knew they had a point. Not about him having diarrhoea, but about him being 'sad.' Recently, his mind had been wandering to things he didn't want to think about. Memories he didn't want to remember, facts he didn't want to face. Just the night before, he had been having a nightmare about the wars the robots had been in. Replaying memories of times when his arm had been blown off, when he could've saved human soldiers from slaughter if only he had been more attentive, when he had seen his siblings horribly mangled and nobody else would care because they were just things that could be repaired or even replaced, if need be.

Of course, he wouldn't tell anybody this. The Spine had a habit of not telling anybody when he was hurt or depressed. He didn't want to trouble them with it, and so he kept denying it.

Something of these thoughts must have shown on his face, because he was soon surrounded by two robot siblings, each nuzzling one of his cheeks with a sock puppet.

"Hey, watch the vents..." The Spine muttered, waving the craft projects away. " I'm okay, I-I promise."

Rabbit frowned and put the sock puppet back in front of his face. "You sure? 'C-cause I have a friend who's known you longer than almost anyone, and she can t-t-tell when you're not feeling too hot." She was a surprisingly good ventriloquist.

"I thought you just said you didn't know Rabbit." The Spine spoke matter of fact-ly to the puppet.

"I was actually talking about Dolley the ice cr-ream dispenser, but her too."

" What we mean is, " Zero said through his sock puppet, " if ya' ever need to talk, you have some amazing friends who'll listen to ya'."

"I'll remember that." The Spine said quietly.

There were a few moments of silence.

"Um, since you just mentioned Dolley... You guys want to get some ice cream?" The Spine made an awkward attempt to break the silence. He never ate ice cream (it just tasted like molecules to him) but seeing the other robots' faces light up brought a smile to his usually grumpy face.

\-------  
Long after the robots had gone out for ice cream, leaving the two socks puppets behind, malicious laughter could be heard.

The puppets had been brought to life by the small amount of blue matter that leaked into them and were now plotting to take over the world.

Frankly, it was one of the milder happenings in the manor that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't ask where Dolley the ice cream dispenser came from, that was just the first and most random thing that came to mind. We may or may not see more of those puppets in the future.


End file.
